Tag: July Talk

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Playlists

Playlist: New tunes from 2023, part one

Well folks, it’s that time again. It’s time to share part one and the first twenty-five tracks of my annual multi-part playlist of new songs of the year. The beginning of 2023 in music.

Personally, I didn’t get a great start to 2023. I started to feel under the weather on New Year’s Day and it developed into a real nasty cough. Like most, I’m sure, I hadn’t gotten sick much over the past few years, what with social distancing and other health measures during the pandemic, so this one hit me really hard. The cough was so bad most nights that it kept me from sleeping. The eventual trip to the doctor landed me a chest x-ray appointment to screen out pneumonia (negative, thankfully) and a puffer to help keep the airways clear. Still, the cough stuck with me for almost two months.

Then, my workplace started returning back to the physical office in March. I know many had returned much earlier so I’m not likely to get much sympathy here but I had been working strictly from home for three years and the return has been a bit of a shock to the system. Packing a lunch and putting aside clothes from the night before, and setting the alarm for 5am have all been a re-learning process and of course, public transit has been more ugly than good. Still, I try to look at the positive side in that it’s only two days a week so far. Just another new normal to get used to.

2023’s not been all bad though. I’ve been in relatively good health since surviving that monster cough and have been eating very well. With the warmer weather, I’ve been getting out for walks in the fresh air as much as possible. I spent a weekend at the cottage with my some old friends that I hadn’t seen in over a year. And with spring arrived and summer on the horizon, here’s looking at more of these.

But let’s get back to the task at hand.

This will mark the fifth year running that I’ve done this exercise and I’ve found it enjoyable to go back every once in a while to see what I was listening to at various points and see which songs have held up and which have not. For the first year or two, I broke the playlist down into three-ish parts and it wasn’t necessarily as structured, but of late, I’ve done one for each quarter of the year and have somehow managed to put together a hundred songs by a hundred different artists for each of the last few years. This first part here is made up of twenty five songs from albums released between January and March and all things being equal, you should see twenty-five more songs from the spring months at some point in late July.

So without further ado, I’ll present the music that has helped keep me going over the first three months of 2023. Highlights include:

      • The near eight minutes of “The golden age” by Molly, which is as dreamy as dreamy can be
      • The debut solo album by Blur drummer Dave Rowntree was a very pleasant surprise and “Downtown” is just a great groove
      • Samia is lovely and brutal and honest on “Kill her freak out” and she might just have you singing along
      • It’s been seven long years since the last album by New Zealand’s The Veils and “No limit of stars” and the rest of the new double album is exactly what we’ve been missing
      • “Colossal waste of light” is the title track off an album by Eyelids, a group of Portland-based indie veterans that I checked out simply because of the involvement The Decemberists’ John Moen and discovered a heck of a lot to like in their brand of jangle pop
      • “Ghosts again” is my favourite track by synth pop legends Depeche Mode since 2005’s “Precious” and this latest record is quite possibly my favourite since 1993’s “Songs of faith and devotion”
      • The highly anticipated and perfectly titled debut full-length by indie supergroup, Boygenius, has joyously lived up to the hype and “$20” is a prime, rocking example of what to expect

Here is the entire playlist as I’ve created it:

1. “When the cynics stare back from the wall (feat. Tracyanne Campbell” Belle & Sebastian (from the album Late developers)

2. “The golden age” Molly (from the album Picturesque)

3. “When you stop” July Talk (from the album Remember never before)

4. “City of angels” Ladytron (from the album Time’s arrow)

5. “Downtown” Dave Rowntree (from the album Radio songs)

6. “Kill her freak out” Samia (from the album Honey)

7. “My blood runs through this land” Black Belt Eagle Scout (from the album The land, the water, the sky)

8. “Sinatra Drive breakdown” Yo La Tengo (from the album This stupid world)

9. “Odd to even” Amber Arcades (from the album Barefoot on Diamond Road)

10. “Unglow the” Pearla (from the album Oh glistening onion, the nighttime is coming)

11. “Fingers of steel” Shame (from the album Food for worms)

12. “Magic powers” Death Valley Girls (from the album Islands in the sky)

13. “Oil (feat. Stevie Nicks)” Gorillaz (from the album Cracker Island)

14. “The people say” Steve Mason (from the album Brothers & sisters)

15. “No limit of stars” The Veils (from the album …And out of the void came love)

16. “Colossal waste of light” Eyelids (from the album A colossal waste of light)

17. “Come back” Frankie Rose (from the album Love as projection)

18. “Meshuggah” Unknown Mortal Orchestra (from the album V)

19. “Baby snakes” Death and Vanilla (from the album Flicker)

20. “Cut the cord” Black Honey (from the album A fistful of peaches)

21. “Right here” Emiliana Torrini & the Colorist Orchestra (from the album Racing the storm)

22. “Ghosts again” Depeche Mode (from the album Memento mori)

23. “Too late for an early grave” The Reds, Pinks and Purples (from the album The town that cursed your name)

24. “Sixers” The Hold Steady (from the album The price of progress)

25. “$20” Boygenius (from the album The record)

Apple initiates or lab rats can click here to let me know if this link works to sample the above tracks as a whole playlist.

And as always, wherever you are in the world, I hope you are safe and continue to be well. Above all, enjoy the tunes.

If you’re interested in checking out any of the other playlists I’ve created and shared on these pages, you can peruse them here.

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Tunes

Best tunes of 2012: #4 July Talk “Paper girl”

<< #5   |    #3 >>

I originally came across the video for “Paper girl” quite by accident, while searching for something else, and was so enthralled that I thoroughly forgot what that something was. In the video (and the song), Peter Dreimanis and Leah Fay, the nucleus of July Talk, play upon multiple levels of dichotomy: rough/smooth vocals, ugly/cute attitudes, old/new sound, male/female gender identities, and well, you get the picture. The video pits the vocalists (and their alter egos) against each other, him loud and brash and her delicate but defiant. It’s fun to watch play out again and again.

July Talk are an alternative rock band based out of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The story of their formation in the bio that used to appear on their website smacked of the stuff of legend: boy hears girl singing in a smoky bar in the early hours of the morning, decides she’s his muse, tracks her down and they form a band. They rounded out said band and sound with Ian Docherty (guitar), Josh Warburton (bass), and Danny Miles (drums). The group has released three studio albums since forming in 2012, each garnering them more and more fans, but in my opinion, neither of the latter two can touch the excellence and originality of the self titled debut.

Much of “July Talk” mines another era for its blues infused chaotic sound but brings its anachronism into the new millennia. The growling and gnarling Tom Waits interplay with the bedroom confessional popster that holds her own is a story that runs throughout the album but “Paper girl” as track three is the shining example. It takes the Pixies’ loud-quiet-loud structure to extreme, seesawing between dirty and aggressive guitars and drums and angelic keyboards. And just like the duelling vocals in a certain song by The Pogues, the Dreimanis and Fay personas rail and thrash at each other, just before they fall passionately and resignedly into each other’s arms.

“Yeah, it must be hard
To watch your body growing old”

 

“And I’ll be laughing in your head until I want to stop
And if you think it’s your turn to explain yourself, it’s not”

It’s a song for turning up loudly when there’s no one else around and for singing along with to both parts because neither is right and neither is wrong but together they work.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2012 list, click here.

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Live music galleries Randomness

Ten great Ottawa Bluesfest sets: A prologue

So here we are, already eight days into July. And if all had gone according to plan, I would be preparing to attend the first day of Ottawa’s Bluesfest tomorrow. I would be packing a change of clothes, sunscreen, sunglasses, probably a rain poncho, my camera, and my festival pass in my satchel, all to bring with me to work so I could head on down to the festival grounds right afterwards. I would probably be planning on which brewery to stop in at beforehand, something I’d been doing with more and more regularity, ever since the festival had adopted Molson and its overpriced cans of macro beer as a sponsor. The excitement would be palpable and my wife would likely be rolling her eyes and preparing to be without her husband for a week and a half…

But alas…

A few weeks after the festival lineup was released to great excitement (Alanis Morissette! Rage against the Machine!) and tickets went on sale, COVID-19 was announced as a worldwide pandemic and a threat to public safety in Canada. Everything was shut down. Concert tours and music festivals around the world were being cancelled. Bluesfest’s organizers held out for as long as they could, hoping against hope that things would clear up, and that the show could still go on. At the end of April, they pulled the plug, offering refunds or the option to transfer tickets to the following year, for which many of the very same exciting acts had already been confirmed. Of course, it was disappointing at the time, albeit completely understandable, and today, on the eve of what would’ve been the opening day, there’s more than a bit of a heavy heart in my chest.

The first time I attended the festival was back in 2009 and I have seen amazing sets at ten different editions of Bluesfest over the years. So what I thought I’d do for the next week and a half was to share photos and words from ten of my favourite sets from over the years, one for each day on which the festival would have taken place. Of course, I have already shared some great Bluesfest sets on these pages that likely would’ve been included. I won’t share them again but if you want whet your appetite for live show photos, you can click on the links below for those posts.

Father John Misty on the River Stage – Wednesday, July 11th, 2012

Camera Obscura on the River Stage – Friday, July 5th, 2013

The Specials on the Claridge Homes Stage – Monday, July 8th, 2013

July Talk on the River Stage – Friday, July 11th, 2014

The Decemberists on the Claridge Stage – Wednesday, July 13th, 2016

Are you ready now? Good! For the next eleven days (the festival always takes one day off after the first weekend for rest), I’ll be sharing a handful of photos, some thoughts, and where possible, the set list (thank you setlist.fm) for ten of my favourite Bluesfest sets. Grab your sunscreen, earplugs, favourite beverage, and let’s get ready to rock.